(1748 - 1811)
William Groombridge was born near Tunbridge Wells, Kent. He was probably a pupil of James Lambert the elder. He exhibited landscapes and miniature portraits at the Society of Arts and the Free Society and the Royal Academy, living at addresses in Kent and London. In 1778 he entered a debtor’s prison. In the following year he published a volume of sonnets. In about 1792, Groombridge married amateur watercolourist ‘Catherine’ and he is thought to have spent time in Jamaica before settling in America in about 1794. He became a founder of the ‘Columbianum’ Art Academy and lived in New York and Philadelphia, later settling in Baltimore, Maryland, where Catherine ran a girl’s school. He died at the school at the age of 63.
